


Not Quite Funny

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Steggy Week 2016 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Steggy Week, Teasing, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7008856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times the Howling Commandos teased Steve and Peggy and once the teasing just didn't feel right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Funny

**Author's Note:**

> In response to the prompt: "When the Howlies tease Steggy about the hearteyes they're constantly making at each other." For Steggy Week 2016, Day 1. The theme, of course, is "wartime."

Dugan drew up beside Peggy as they trudged through the muck, boots sticking fast and making obscene sucking sounds as the yanked their feet up out of it. Rain had washed out most of the road, which hadn’t been much of a road to begin with. Luckily, the area they were trekking through wasn’t occupied—by either side, which was an oddity and a miracle in itself. Dugan leaned in close and Peggy regarded him out of the corner of her eye.

“Yes?”

“Oh, Agent _Carter_!” His voice went soft and he batted his eyelashes at her.

“Don’t you start now.”

“But Agent _Carter_ —“

Steve’s laughter carried from several paces up the road as Barnes smacked him hard with his own hip, sending him stumbling into the slick underbrush. Dugan puckered his lips and leaned in infinitesimally closer. Peggy narrowed her eyes and pinched the offending lips between her thumb and forefinger.

“Knock it off or I shall be very cross with you.”

Dugan spoke around her fingers in a comically muffled tone. “Aww, Carter, yer just no fun.”

“None of that.” She released him.

“Did’ja kiss ‘im yet?”

“ _Corporal._ ”

“You pullin’ rank on me, Carter?”

Dugan grinned and tipped his bowler and made a show of catching up to Morita.

***

Steve seemed totally unaware of the way he was dreamily staring across their small camp to where Agent Carter was inspecting her weapons. They’d gotten caught in a sudden downpour before they’d reached their destination for the night, everyone was praying that their powder had stayed dry. By some stroke of the divine, their weapons had made it through the rain unharmed for the most part, even if they were all wet to the bone themselves.

They’d taken over the barn when they got to where they were going—a modest farm held by someone known amongst Carter’s various shadowy contacts to make it a regular habit of hiding people who needed to be hidden. Uniforms had been discarded, hung up to dry on the railing of the loft, and a stout older woman had appeared with a house-dress for Carter to throw on.

They’d all been thoroughly unimpressed with her underthings, all demanding that Steve find her something frilly with his officer’s pay on their next stretch of mandatory R-and-R. Steve had blushed an intense shade of red and Carter had rolled her eyes, her baring just as intimidating stripped to damp skivvies as it was in combat attire.

They’d been instructed to keep the fire low so they didn’t fill the barn with smoke or attract any unwanted visitors with the light. The Howlers sat huddled together under the horse blankets, their backs to the annoyed huffing of the horses, their moisture-wrinkled toes as close to the modest flame as they dared. None of them particularly wanted to have to admit to having lost a toe or a foot to rot.

“Steve!”

The Captain wrinkled his nose and swatted Bucky’s hand away, a painful sting in the shell of his ear where it had been flicked.

“What?”

“You just gonna watch ‘er clean ‘er gun all night?”

“Nope, at some point I plan on gettin’ some shut-eye, Jerk.”

“Y’know, I don’t even think you looked at Bernadette Farrell that way when she agreed t’dance with ya that time—and you had it _bad_ fer ‘Dette.”

“Shut up, Bucky.” Steve snorted and shook his head, a smile on his face.

“If I recall, you stepped on her feet so many times ya might as well’ve been countin’ off the dance that way.”

“Well, I’m not gonna step on Peggy’s feet.”

Bucky grinned from ear to ear and Steve’s eyes widened in horror. “Peggy?”

Carter glanced up from her work, the action of her sidearm sliding with a metallic _click_ as she put the pieces back together.

“Buck, don’t—“

“Don’t worry, Punk, I’m not gonna say a word.” The grin stayed on his face and he combed his fingers through his hair, wildly curly in the persisting humidity of the storm. His expression softened and he bumped Steve’s shoulder with his. They adjusted their blanket closer around their shoulders, the goosebumps on Bucky’s arms threatening to grow goosebumps of their own. “You’re a lucky fella, Steve.”

Steve smiled across the fire at Peggy, who was flexing her toes in its glow and using her fingers to work through the knots in her hair. “I really am.”

***

Somehow they’d wound up in Melbourne, of all places. It was more good-will than anything else, and a pick-me-up tour that briefly turned them all into USO stars to meet the boys who’d been going through hell out in the Pacific. A handful of Marine units had been rotated through to Australia to rest up before inevitably they got dumped back in the field. Every single one the Howlers met looked world-weary. Tired to the bone like they’d seen too much and then some. Over the course of the Howlers’ first few days in town, some of the light started to return to their faces—war-hardened soldiers sitting in the bars suddenly looking too young to drink.

“Nuh-uh. There’s no way you can make that shot.” Jim crossed his arms and raised his brow. Falsworth had been daring Carter to make increasingly ridiculous shots at the dartboard. “Not a damn chance in hell.”

A few of the boys—American and Australian alike—who had gathered to join in with the lightly competitive game nodded in agreement.

Carter raised a brow and glanced at the group of women sitting together at a table at the edge of the group. “What do you say, ladies?”

One smiled, her bright red lips spreading into a look of pure mischief. “I say,” she turned to wiggle her eyebrows in Morita’s direction. Gabriel made a sound like Jim had found trouble. “I say he buys the next round for the lot of us if you make it.”

“The pressure is on then!” Carter stepped up to clear the board, selecting her dart after carefully weighing them in her hand. She crossed the room and aimed, the dart sticking fast.

Jim grumbled as Falsworth laughed, smacking him on the shoulder with his mirth. “Dammit. I’ll pay for the round, but I ain’t playin’ waitress.”

Rogers chuckled as he finished the last mouthful of beer in his mug. “When are you gonna learn not ta bet against ‘er?”

Jim squinted, trying to look menacing and failing when he made himself laugh. “Shut up, you.”

Steve shook his head and stood, Gabe and Dernier rising to follow. They quietly checked on what the ladies at the table would like and wove their way through the crowded room to the bar.

“I bet you can’t make that shot _twice_.”

Falsworth sighed, “You Yanks truly never learn, do you?” He grinned in Carter’s direction and nodded toward the pile of darts on the table. “Show ‘im how it’s done, Agent Carter.”

She laughed at the absurdity of the scene and selected another dart. “What are we betting this time?”

Morita paused, thinking for a moment. “I’ll let ya lay one on Rogers.”

“Oh, I need your permission for that now?”

“No secret the way you two make googly eyes at each other—just protectin’ the Captain’s virtue. Gotta limit yer amorous interactions to a reasonable level.”

Carter laughed a full-bellied laugh this time. “ _Steve’s_ virtue, really?”

“Mhmm.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yup.” He dragged the single syllable out into three before popping his lips around the _P_.

“Alright then, I make the shot then I _lay one on ‘im_.” She did her best impression of a gravelly American accent.

The ladies all laughed, one making a half-joking comment that she’d like to sully the Captain’s virtue herself and earning a playful pinch from the young man whose knee she was perched on. She gasped and smacked him with her glove, admonishing him in huskily whispered tones, “ _Sergeant Barnes!”_

Carter continued to laugh as she lined up the shot and let the dart fly from her fingers.

Steve was responding to something that Dernier had said, nearly shouting over the noise in the place in half-English, half-French. Gabe shook his head and corrected something Steve had said, Dernier nodding enthusiastically as he set down a tray heavy with fresh mugs of beer.

“Rogers!”

Steve’s eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder sheepishly. “Yes, ma’am?”

Peggy pursed her lips, meaning to look authoritative, as she approached him. He turned on her fully and she made it her business to fix his opened collar and loose tie before yanking him down to press their lips together in a comical smack. Steve looked dazed when he pulled away, nearly letting the head on is drink dump down his front. He put the mug down and in a grandly bold gesture, leaned in for a second kiss. If Peggy hadn’t known better, she might have said he was competing with Jim to see who could be drunker. She answered his boldness in kind, pulling him down as expertly as she might handle an enemy combatant. With his neck cradled in the crook of her elbow she leaned down and silenced his breathy laughter by covering his mouth with hers.

The bar erupted in hoots and hollers and shouts of _Oy! Oy! Oy!_ over the laughter and applause of their group.

***

Steve looked as exhausted as Peggy felt. The effort he put into not allowing anyone to see his tired or in pain or hungry he was left her perpetually baffled. He yanked off his gloves, grimacing as their transport jostled them hard over the uneven road, and flexed his fingers. His knuckles were bruised, the digits seemed stiff as he wiped at the sweat beading on his forehead.

“You alright, Steve?”

“Mm? Yeah.” He unscrewed the top of his canteen, frowning to find it empty. None of them had any water to offer.

Peggy stretched her leg out across the back of the truck and fished in the pocket on the side. She produced a packet of candy-coated chocolate drops. “Here, suck—don’t chew.”

Steve took them hesitantly. “You sure?”

“Positive.”

He nodded his thanks and carefully tore the corner off of the packet. “When are we makin’ camp?”

“Not until after we secure the next checkpoint.”

They waited quietly for Gabe’s signal—a stuttered phrase in a pretended broken-German.

Steve let out a lungful of air in a whoosh as he fitted his helmet back onto his head. With the shield secured on his arm he went barreling out of the back of the transport and into the HYDRA agents gathered around it. With the grouping effectively broken, the Howlers jumped out and into the fray. Peggy leapt from the truck, bringing the stock of her gun down on the forehead of the agent that made to grab her.

The battle was blessedly short-lived, the last of the enemy agents going down as Steve raised his knee hard into the man’s crotch. He doubled forward as Steve dropped his shoulder and drove it up into the broad chest at _just_ the right angle.

Peggy smirked and elbowed Barnes in the ribs gently. “I taught him that.” Barnes scoffed, an amused sound, and turned back to the transport heading toward the cab to drive it the rest of the way through the checkpoint.

Peggy turned around in a circle, looking and spotting the shield lodged in the trunk of a tree a dozen yards away. She jogged over to it and grabbed tight at the rim, a foot against the tree with the intent to pull it free. It wouldn’t budge. “Bollocks.”

Footsteps behind her signaled Dernier’s approach. Together, they freed the shield.

“Sait-il que vous l'aimes?” His expression was unusually somber.

Peggy chewed her lip and thrust her arm through the handles of the shield as they trudged back over to the others. “Oui.”

***

It was the first time they were back on base in months. Steve was relieved to not have to lug around gear or put on the many protective layers of his suit—his regular Army uniform felt like pajamas compared to it at that point.

He’d found a spot at a table near the kitchen, a starry-eyed Private had noticed him and immediately came hurrying over with a fresh cup of the thick, black coffee they served in the Mess.

“Cap—Cap—Capt-tain? Captain Rogers?”

Steve grinned and pushed his mug across the table when he noticed the carafe in the kid’s hands. “Oh gosh, please. Even this stuff is better than none at all.”

The kid laughed and looked around, checking for superiors before slipping onto the bench across from Steve. “I heard you’re from New York?”

He nodded, “Brooklyn, born and raised.”

The kid’s eyes lit up. “Flushing.” It struck Steve that the Private sitting across from him probably wasn’t too far off from his own age. Steve felt like he was ninety-five years old. He’d seen and done too much to ever feel as young as the Private looked again. “Wha’cher got there?”

“Oh,” Steve picked up his hand from atop his notebook. It wasn’t proper sketch paper, but the book fit in his pocket perfectly and it was more illustrated journal than anything else. “Just doodling.”

The kid seemed embarrassed for a moment at his casual address. Steve brushed it off and the flush in his face disappated.

Steve turned the book around to show the page he was working on. Peggy glared into the horizon from the paper, dirt streaked across her face and fine wisps of hair escaping from the ponytail tied at the back of her head. “That there is not _just doodlin’_.” Steve laughed. “She real?”

“Amazingly enough, she absolutely is.” The private made to turn the page over and Steve held it down. He withdrew his hand, cheeks burning read again and mumbling a stuttering apology. “It’s alright.”

“She reminds me’ah one of them… wha’cha call ‘em? Valkyries.” He tapped a smaller sketch near the bottom corner of the open book. “Who’s this guy?”

Steve shook his head. “Nobody.”

A wide shadow fell across the table and the Private tensed. Bucky cleared his throat from somewhere over the kid’s head. “Yer Cee-Oh is headed this way, Mills. You can leave the pot.”

The Private jumped up from the table, nearly upending the carafe as he did. “Oh, geeze, thanks, Sarge!”

“Toss us a couple’a them mugs while yer up!” The Private grabbed first one coffee mug and then another, easily tossing them underhanded in Bucky’s direction as he bustled back toward the double doors of the kitchen.

“And what’s the masterpiece of the day, Punk?” Bucky took the seat that had just been vacated, Jones slipping in beside him to tip the last of the contents of the carafe between their mugs. “ _Christ_ , another page full’a Peggy.” He winked.

Gabe took a long sip of coffee, “You hear from her yet?”

“Nah, she’s doing some kind of secret thing. I won’t hear anything until she’s back—probably not even then.”

Gabe put his hand out, fingers resting gently against the corner of the notebook. “May I?” Steve smiled and nodded and pushed the notebook toward him. Jones perused the sketches, turning each page in a reverent manner, careful not to dog the corners or crease anything. “You two are really somethin’, y’know that?”

Steve blushed hard. Bucky nudged his shin under the table. “She’s a lucky woman, Steve.”

“I’m a lucky man.” Gabe raised his brows as he looked at a sketch of the pair of them together, Steve much more petite than Jones had ever known him. Steve shrugged. “Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I want to.” Jones and Bucky nodded knowingly.

“You make any plans yet?” Gabe passed the notebook back.

“Nah. We haven’t even talked about that stuff. Just tryin’a get through the rest of this War.”

“That sounds like a plan if I ever heard one.”

“I guess it is.”

Steve drained his mug and leaned back in his seat to see if he could catch the Private’s eye, maybe sneak a couple of dinner rolls back to his bunk. As he leaned he slipped his hand into his pocket, fingering the steel ring in his pocket. He’d pulled it off a dummy grenade—wished it could have been the one Phillips had thrown into the crowd of Privates in those first weeks of training, when Peggy first looked at him like he was made of better things. He’d spent the hours in which he couldn’t sleep making sure the thing was nice and smooth. He’d bent the connecting post down, curling it over itself. The resulting ring didn’t look too shabby if he didn’t scrutinize it too hard.

***

It had been a few weeks since the Valkyrie.

Phillips encouraged Peggy to take a couple of days’ leave—she was entitled to a few and he sure as hell wouldn’t stop her if she wanted them.

“No, sir,” she said. “I’d like to keep working.”

“Carter, I—“

“Colonel, I am endlessly grateful for the offer. I think it’s best that I continue to work. Steve made his choice and I will allow him the dignity of it.”

Phillips gave her a resigned look and told her to carry on.

Peggy’s eyes were going crossed she’d stared at the stack of field reports in front of her for so long. She glanced at her watch, stunned by the time, and stretched and yawned. She leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on her desk, staring up at the ceiling fan as it whirled in lazy circles.

As she moved, her identification tags clinked together against another metallic addition to the chain.

Peggy put her hand delicately on her chest, tracing the outline of the grenade pin Steve had proposed with just hours before his life—their life together—ended. She’d been furious at first. He was throwing every discussion they’d had straight into the wind. Survive then plan—that’s what they’d agreed.

She told him no.

He’d left her the simple ring and said he wasn’t going to change his mind. He was afraid of waiting too long. The decision was in her hands.

When Peggy realized what the ring actually was she thought of her time state-side with Erskine, of Phillips’ constant harassing of the Rebirth candidates, of Steve’s dogged determination and cleverness and how he was _so like her_.

She imagined Michael would tell her to follow her gut. Her gut said “yes.”

When she kissed him, it was her answer. He’d looked at her in awe and made her heart clench in her chest. She’d had the ring hanging with her tags even then.

Peggy put her feet down on the floor again and braced her elbows against her knees, head in her hands. She took deep slow breaths, trying to keep her composure. “Absolutely not, Margaret Carter, you’ve got work to do.”

She sat up and pushed the field reports aside in favor for a different stack—personnel files for several young men who had dreams of becoming a Howling Commando. The boys had their favorites but insisted on Peggy’s opinion either way. They wouldn’t hear any protest.

Peggy opened her desk drawer, on the hunt for a steno pad to jot down her thoughts on each one. Her hand hovered over a battered journal, edged stained with dirt and water. She pushed it into the back of the drawer and grabbed a wire-bound pad from beneath it.

“Bloody Nora, I swear I _just_ had a pencil in my hand.”

She set about opening and closing drawers, searching for another. The gun box in the bottom drawer clanked loudly against the walls when she opened it.

Somewhere along the line, and at this point she couldn’t quite remember where—the sporadic time off or mandatory rest periods that she and the Howlers had been issued blurred together at the edges—Peggy had acquired an extra sidearm. She’d won it fair and square after several rounds of checkers and test of strength to settle the score. Its previous owner hadn’t been happy, but had given it up nonetheless.

It wasn’t as if it had been rightfully his in the first place, he’d gotten it in much the same way.

Dugan had laughed and slapped her hard between the shoulders just like he would have any of the Howlers. “Carter, I didn’t know you had a fondness for the ladies!” he pointed at the pin-up photo screwed in beneath the clear grip.

“Well, Dum Dum, if Ms. Hayworth can give him courage in battle she can certainly give it to me as well.”

Peggy took the Colt out then, a good, sturdy weapon. Rita Hayworth gazed up at her with seductive eyes from behind the grip—a salvaged bit of plastic from some craft or another. Peggy smiled at the memory.

“She’s from Brooklyn. Pretty sure she could wipe the floor with a HYDRA agent if she came across one, Dum.” Steve had looked utterly smug and offered to service the weapon with a high arch to his brow and a low tone only Peggy was meant to hear.

She opened her top drawer once again, taking out her pocket knife and flipping out the curved piece meant to open cans. She worked at the grip screws with it, praying she didn’t strip them while she did. With the bit of plastic removed, she liberated Rita from behind it. Before she could talk herself out of it, she fished the journal from the back of the drawer and rolled the elastic band off of it. She closed her eyes when the cover fell open on neat script _Capt. S Rogers_. She flipped past pages filled with dense text and covered from edge to edge with detailed illustrations, not needing to look very hard for what she wanted.

Peggy placed the clear grip place that had housed the pin-up over the sketchy self-portrait and traced around it. She made sure she wasn’t ruining anything on the opposite side and carefully cut the drawing out. She was screwing the grip back into place when she was startled by a knock on the office door.

“Agent Carter?”

“Monty, you’re up late.”

“Ah, dreaming of my mother’s biscuits.”

“Sounds pleasant.” She finished screwing the plastic into place and trimmed away in errant edge of the paper with her pocket knife.

“Oh, Lord, no. My mother couldn’t cook if her life depended on it—it was a nightmare, hence the not sleeping.”

Peggy laughed, “What can I do for you?”

He gestured to the files on the desk, “I came to throw another name into the race. I like Pinkerton for the job.”

Peggy pursed her lips, “Why is that name familiar?” She chucked the pocket knife back into the drawer and closed the journal, rolling the elastic back over the width and placing it away as well. “Is he the one with the umbrella?”

Monty grinned, “One in the same.”

“I do like him.”

He picked up the discarded photograph, “What’s this? Has Ms. Hayworth fallen out of your good graces? Someone prettier caught your eye?” He picked up the Colt and looked at the grip. “Oh, Carter, I’m so sorry.”

Peggy took the gun back, placed it back into the box and shut the drawer. “Don’t be. He’s from Brooklyn—could probably wipe the floor with any HYDRA agent he came across.” The tags and grenade pin clinked against each other once more under her shirt as she settled back in her chair. “Now tell me about Pinkerton.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: M&M's started as an idea copied from candies that Forrest Mars saw during the Spanish Civil War. Mars approached Bruce Murrie, from the Hershey company, in anticipation of wartime shortages. M&M's went into production after Mars got a patent on the manufacturing process in 1941 and after the US entered the War, the candy was sold exclusively to the military for inclusion in rations.
> 
> Another fun fact: "Sweetheart grips" were used by American soldiers in the field during WWII. Using salvaged acrylic from plane viewports, they made clear "picture frame" -esque grips for their guns to replace the standard wooden grips. Photos went underneath the acrylic, typically only on one side with the other left see-though to keep count of how many rounds were left.
> 
> Random fact: The kind of grenade Phillips threw at the training group in TFA is probably an MK II hand grenade. It's that classic "pineapple" shape, _but_ the training "dummy" grenades are slightly less round and are different colors. The one Phillips threw was probably painted to look like a live explosive (either for training purposes or because of anachronisms).
> 
> Peggy's meant to be holding Steve the same way as in the Soldier/Nurse kiss photo. 
> 
> Dernier asks her if Steve knows she loves him. As with any instance of my using a language other than English, if you speak it and can offer a correction, please do!


End file.
